John P. Marttilla is a team player quick to share credit for his successes with the other members of Marttilla, Payne, Kiley and Thorne, Inc., a Boston-based political consulting firm of which he is, at 33, the senior partner. Willing to work only for Democrats, Marttilla et al. have placed 16 of their 19 clients in office including Representative Robert Drinan ('70), Boston Mayor Kevin White ('71) and New Jersey Governor Brendan Byrne ('73). The team's most recent triumph, an upset, placed Michigan Democrat Richard Van der Veen in the House seat vacated by Vice-President Gerald Ford.

A political campaigner since his college days, Marttilla dropped out of Wayne State Law School and did community work on Detroit's east side before moving east to set up the firm. His strategy? Recruiting committed volunteers: "One idealistic hardworking housewife is better than all the ward heelers you can get."

Johnny Rodriguez and a bunch of his buddies spent a night in the Uvalde, Texas hoosegow back in 1970 after they were nabbed in a state park barbecuing a stolen goat. It was the turning point for Rodriguez—who has recorded three hit singles of his brand of Tex-Mex music in the last year—because to while away the hours Johnny began to entertain the jailhouse with a little singing and strumming. One listener was a Texas Ranger who called a promoter friend of his on the hunch that he was listening to a future star. Smart cop. Even smarter promoter Happy Shahan signed Rodriguez to a long contract, starting out slowly as an all around performer at Shahan's sprawling Alamo Village, a movie set and tourist extravaganza at Bracketville. Now 22, Johnny is shaking up the country music scene in ways unseen since the fledgling days of Elvis the Pelvis. That's the Way Love Goes, Johnny's latest single, recently zoomed to the top of the country music charts.

Ted Bell is a fancy-footed tailback—he led Youngstown's Cardinal Mooney High School to the Ohio state championships last fall—who was known to change direction seven times in the space of ten yards. For a while he was playing just as hard to get with football scouts from the 200-odd colleges frantically trying to swap scholarships for his football prowess. O.J. Simpson—with whom Bell's running style is most frequently compared—called him personally to extol the virtues of the Juice's alma mater, the University of Southern California. Ted agreed to fly out and take a look-see. But he finally settled on Michigan State. That Bell, 18, should be the nation's most prized high school senior came as no surprise to his coaches at Cardinal Mooney. He had toted up an incredible 4,428 yards rushing in three years of high school ball—360 yards in one game alone. Reserved off the field to the point of taciturnity, Bell is one of 13 children of a steelworker's family from the slums of Youngstown's squalid south side.